Mercedes have returned to an all-black colour scheme for a 2023 car that team boss Toto Wolff hopes will “eventually fight at the very front”.
The team fell from the pinnacle of eight consecutive world titles last year with a car that won only one race.
Mercedes are sticking with their ‘no-sidepod design’ but hope to have solved the problems they had last year.
“We are contemplating: ‘Is she fast, have we cured some of the problems?’ And that is a big unknown,” Wolff said.
“But we have the tools to develop the car and hopefully give George [Russell] and Lewis [Hamilton] something that works.”
He emphasised that the use of the word “eventually” to describe Mercedes’ potential return to absolute competitiveness was a reflection of the fact that the team were attempting to come back from a position in which they were a significant distance behind world champions Red Bull last year.
“On one side, you want to say: ‘We will be competitive’,” he said. “But on the other side you want to stay humble and so you say I hope and the midway was: ‘We will be competitive but we just don’t know when’.
“We are on the slope we wanted to be in terms of performance but you don’t know where the other ones are and humility is most important. We always try to be humble and we need to remind ourselves we were quite far off for a long time last season.”
The black colour scheme was first introduced by Mercedes in 2020 to promote diversity and inclusion – a campaign with which the team supported Hamilton’s push to increase the representation of minorities in motorsport.
Abandoned after two years for a return to Mercedes’ traditional silver, it returns this year to help save weight.
“We were overweight last year,” Wolff said. “This year we have tried to figure out where we can squeeze out every single gram. So now history repeats itself.
“You will see that the car has some raw carbon bits, along with some that are painted matt black.
“Of course, when we changed the livery in 2020, the main driving factor was to support the diversity and equality causes which are always close to our heart. The colour black became part of our DNA at that point, so we are pleased to return to it.”
He added that the car was “on the weight limit of what we wanted to achieve”.
“There is not tons of weight you save on the paint,” Wolff said. “But it shows the intent and the narrative is just right – not only in the historical concept of how the silver arrows were created but the intent of painting car black a couple of years ago is still very valid.”
The no-sidepod concept attracted much attention in 2022 because it was so different from the designs of the two fastest cars of the year, from Red Bull and Ferrari.
Although each took a different approach, both differed from Mercedes in having high bodywork – sidepods – that directed air over them to the rear of the car and featured a lower channel that controlled the crucial airflow to the sides of the floor.
Mercedes, by contrast, pared their sidepods right back to the extent they were almost not there.
It was considered a major engineering achievement to do so when that area of the car handles the cooling, but some engineers believed a large exposed floor area was at the root of the aerodynamic bouncing problem that afflicted Mercedes for much of the year.
There are also active questions in F1 as to whether the no-sidepod concept can ever be as competitive as the Red Bull/Ferrari directions.
Technical director Mike Elliott said the team thought hard about abandoning their design concept and moving to the very different one pioneered by Red Bull, which has been copied by much of the rest of the grid.
Elliott said: “At times last year, we were questioning ourselves and saying: ‘Do we have to tear it all up and start again?’ But you know if you do that, you are going to go backwards. Although we had problems last year, we know there is a lot of goodness in the car.”
He said the front and rear suspension had “completely changed” and that although the bodywork looked similar, it contained “quite significant changes”.
“We’ve looked at the problems we had last year and how best to ensure we solved them,” Elliott said.
Wolff said that although the launch car was in similar specification to the car that would appear at the pre-season test next week and opening grand prix a week later, the design could change as the season developed.
“It is important to be bold in this sport,” Wolff said. “And I am still proud of the solutions we put last year. The narrow sidepod is not the reason why we didn’t have performance.
“There are no holy cows. It is not that we don’t want to follow other people’s ideas. We stuck with it for now, but you may see some developments coming from the upgrades, and the sidepods will change – not very soon but we are looking at solutions. But it is not a core fundamental performance part, we judge.”
Like Ferrari on Tuesday, Mercedes have unveiled a real car, and drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are due to drive it for the first time at Silverstone on Tuesday.
Hamilton again emphasised that he was likely to stay in F1 beyond of his contract, which expires at the end of this season, and Wolff said he had no doubt the seven-time champion would stay.
“His age, 38, plays no role for this next contract,” Wolff said. “If you look at how well top athletes have pushed the boundaries – I’m thinking about [NFL star] Tom Brady, still throwing the ball at age 44-45 – the age plays no role.
“In terms of the contractual situation, we have always found good solutions and for the other side Mercedes are the place he wants to be.
“These things have never been contentious. Nothing is dragging on. The alignment is there. This will be a journey that will continue.”